What science fiction readers expect
Readers come for ideas, and they stay when the ideas change people. A strong science fiction novel usually has one central speculative premise (a technology, a discovery, a contact, a change to society) and follows its effects through characters with something personal at stake.
Readers also expect internal consistency. Hard SF readers want the science to hold up; space opera readers want scale, factions and adventure; near-future readers want a world one plausible step from ours. Whichever you write, decide what your technology can't do. Faster-than-light travel, uploaded minds or a cure for ageing all need limits, or the plot can solve anything.
Length and structure
Many science fiction novels fall somewhere between about 80,000 and 110,000 words, with space opera often longer and near-future thrillers often shorter. The Full-length (60,000) and Epic (90,000) presets both work; a novella built on a single idea suits the Standard preset.
Structure follows the idea. A common pattern: the ordinary world with the speculative element already in it, an event that exposes its cost, an investigation or journey that reveals how deep the change goes, a midpoint where the protagonist learns the idea's true implication, and a climax that forces a choice only this premise could create.
How Inkora writes science fiction
Put the premise and its rules in your brief: what the technology does, what it costs, who controls it. Planning turns that into a setting description, a cast with arcs and a full synopsis, ending included, which you can edit before writing begins.
Each chapter is drafted as three to five scenes, continuing from the exact last lines of the previous one. After every chapter the continuity pass records atomic facts (the colony ship carries 4,000 sleepers; the jump drive needs nine days to recharge; Captain Ivers lost her left hand on Titan) and every later scene is written not to contradict them.
What to put in your brief
The brief is the “Your book idea & instructions” box in the new-book wizard. The more specific it is, the less generic the book. Here is an example, with the settings that go with it:
Near-future science fiction, set in 2061. A memory-backup service lets people restore their minds into a new body after death, but only up to their last backup. Dr Lena Sørensen, 45, a backup technician in Copenhagen, restores her own husband and realises the man who wakes up is missing the week in which he discovered something about the company. Rules: backups are weekly; a restored person cannot remember being dead; the company owns the backups, not the customers. Ending: Lena publishes the missing week, knowing it means her husband's backup will be deleted. Quiet, tense, character-driven; close third on Lena.
Other wizard settings
- Genre
- Science Fiction
- Audience
- Adult readers of near-future SF
- Tone
- Lyrical & literary
- Point of view
- Third person limited
- Length
- Full-length (60,000 words)
Example outline: The Missing Week
A brief like the one above gives a plan along these lines. You can rename, reorder, add or delete chapters before any writing starts.
- 1
Restore
Lena runs a routine restoration and comforts a widow who now isn't one.
- 2
Jonas
Her husband dies in a cycling accident, eight days after his last backup.
- 3
Waking
Jonas wakes in his new body, tender and confused, missing exactly one week.
- 4
Gaps
Lena notices he doesn't recognise a name he wrote in his notebook that week.
- 5
Terms of Service
She rereads the contract and finds who owns his mind.
- 6
The Notebook
Jonas's notes point to backups being edited before restore.
- 7
Audit
Midpoint: Lena finds hundreds of restorations with the same kind of gap.
- 8
The Other Wives
She meets families who noticed something missing and were told it was grief.
- 9
Offer
The company offers to restore the missing week if she signs a non-disclosure.
- 10
What Jonas Wants
He asks her to choose the truth over him.
- 11
Publish
Lena releases the logs and the company triggers the deletion clause.
- 12
Last Backup
Their last day together, both of them knowing it will not be saved.
Condensed to 12 chapters; the Full-length preset plans 20.
Common mistakes
- Explaining the technology for pages before showing what it does to anyone.
- A premise with no limits, so every problem has a technical fix.
- Characters who exist only to tour the world. Give them a personal stake in the idea.
- Inventing too many terms at once; readers need a few to hold on to.
- Contradicting your own rules in the climax because it's convenient.